If I'm McHale, I stay right where I am and select Brook Lopez. This allows you to move Al back to the 4 spot where he will dominate. with Foye, Brewer, and McCants, and Telfair they'll have a really good team.
Who's that team beating?
They not beating at least 10 teams (Spurs, Suns, Blazers, Hornets, Lakers, Jazz, Rockets, Mavs, Warriors, Nuggets) in the West and likely as many as 12-13 teams are better than them (Clippers and Kings are definitely better and possibly the Sonics). That team is better than the Grizzlies .... just about.
I don't know, they won 22 games without Lopez and with Jefferson playing out of position at the 5 spot. I'm just saying, with Lopez, a true 5, they can move Jefferson back to the 4 where he will dominate Western Conference 4's. Now give the rest of the team another year and who knows, maybe mid 30's in wins.
I look at the T-wolves like I did the C's a couple of years back. All they need is experience and maybe they develop the young talent to trade for the vet, or maybe they keep it and it develops on its own.
I think they have the making of a really good young team and with really good 5, it would help.
My problem with Lopez is that he doesn't play much defense so now the T'Wolves have two bad interior defenders who are probably going to be there for 6-10 years severely hurting any chance they have of contending. Al needs a top defender next to him like a Dalembert. It also gives them two bigs who aren't overly athletic which will cause problems defending quick bigs/perimeter bigs/screen and rolls.
On the other end they have two good interior scorers but only one player who can knock down a perimeter jump shot so opposition will continue to choke away Wolf wins by jamming the paint and forcing outside shots. Just like this past season.
My problem with a comparison to Boston's team is Paul Pierce. They don't have that caliber of a player on the perimeter to put alongside Big Al.
Mid-30s in wins isn't a good team. That's a poor team. That's somewhere between 19-25th worst teams in the league and that's if they develop well.
